Timing is Everything: Best Times for Posting Content on Social Media

After being on hiatus for several months, we are back to our regular updates on SEO and Internet Marketing tips and advice. Given the circumstances, it seems like the best topic for this article is timing! In the world of internet marketing, thousands of web pages are produced daily, and millions of words of content follow. The moment your content is live, it will likely be buried in an avalanche of competing material unless you can make yours stand out. You can do this by creating stellar content, of course, but even the best material is forgotten unless people share it.

As a consequence, you have to time your content for when it is most likely to be picked up by your audience. The question for any aspiring marketer is when the best time for this is. Post at the wrong time and your audience will likely miss whatever it is you have posted. Thankfully, we’ve put together a handy guide to help with posting on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn!

Facebook

The most popular social media platform today. You already know how everybody expects you to have a Facebook – both a personal page and one for your business. It is also the more casual platform, and the browsing behavior of its users reflect this. Although Facebook users are on the platform every day, engagement is best Thursdays and Fridays, generally after lunch in the 1 pm to 3 pm timeframe. Thus, your best results will come towards the end of the week, around when people are thinking less about work and more about the upcoming weekend.

The worst days for engagement on Facebook are Monday through Wednesday. In fact, engagement for Facebook falls roughly 3.5% for posts that are hosted exclusively on these days. You’ll want to avoid posting on these days and focus your efforts for the end of the week.

Twitter

Everybody loves Twitter. It delivers your message as long as that message is 160 characters or less. Unlike the other two platforms of Facebook and LinkedIn, best days for Twitter engagement will vary according to what type of business you are.

If you are a business to business oriented company, then you are trying to catch people towards the end of the work day. Your best time to post is towards the end of the working day, just before people are going home. However, you have a wide window with which to post. Highest CTR on Twitter for B2B accounts ranges from noon all the way to 6 pm.

If you are a business to consumer oriented company, then you are looking to talk to people at home. Although Wednesdays do report high engagement rates on Twitter for B2C companies, you see higher numbers on the weekends. You can use a tool like Buffer to schedule your weekend tweets. Make sure that you have somebody monitoring the feed at all times, however! The last thing you want is to miss a potential time for engagement because you were at home.

One final note about timing: one tweet per day is not going to build your following or engage your audience regardless of the type of business you have. Multiple tweets throughout the day (in three to four-hour intervals) is ideal.

LinkedIn

Facebook’s more professional cousin is the best place for B2B entrepreneurs to network. While Facebook and Twitter are fantastic to reach out to more casual users, LinkedIn is essential for reaching out to fellow professionals. The best times for posting reflect the nature of the user base, with post times being ideal around when people are going to or leaving work.

Mondays and Fridays are poor days for posting. Schedule your posts for Tuesday through Thursday, from 7 am to 8 am or from 5 pm to 6 pm. The ideal time for posting on LinkedIn, however, is Tuesday sometime between 10 am and 11 am. This time of the day yields the highest number of clicks and shares.

Important Reminders About Social Media!

Although these times are ideal, remember that as with all marketing advice, your mileage may vary. As we see with Twitter, the type of business you run can greatly impact when the best time to post is. These times are most likely when you’ll see the highest rates of engagement, and should serve most individuals.

Finding out when the best times to post for your industry are, and scheduling accordingly, requires the use of social media tools. We went over some of our favorite social media tools in an earlier post, and this should help you to get started.

Regardless of when you post, however, remember that your goal is customer engagement. You want to talk to people, and you want them to talk to you. Customer engagement has no schedule: it will happen when it happens. I say this as a reminder that your social media manager should be monitoring social media feeds daily, and be willing to respond even if they are at home.